William Hodges, official artist on Cook's 



1768 voyage into the Pacific, did 



this painting of Tahiti and her war canoes. 



Captain James Cook. 



By the age of twenty-four, he had become a mate in the merchant 

 marine and would soon have risen to captain had he been willing 

 to remain in the restricted waters of the North Sea. But in 1755, 

 when war broke out between the English and French colonists in 

 North America, Cook saw his chance to steer a course for wider 

 horizons. Resigning from the merchant marine, he volunteered for 

 the Royal Navy as an ordinary seaman aboard H.M.S. Eagle, under 

 Captain Sir Hugh Palliser. Cook's experience at sea and his long 

 evenings over textbooks bore quick fruit. Within a month he was 

 master's mate of the Eagle and had won the respect and friendship 

 of Palliser himself. 



After two years on the Eagle, Cook was promoted and trans- 

 ferred to the Pembroke, a ship that was destined to play an important 

 role in capturing Quebec from the French. The success of the 

 British depended on their abiUty to navigate the St. Lawrence 

 River, and Cook was given the job of charting the river under the 

 very nose of the French. After a week of careful work under cover 

 of darkness he completed a survey that is still the basis for modern 

 charts of the St. Lawrence. And so it was that General Wolfe's 

 famous capture of Quebec was made possible largely by James 

 Cook's skill. 



In 1768 the Royal Society was busily planning an expedition to 

 the South Pacific to observe the 1769 transit of Venus. It was hoped 

 that close observation of the event would shed new light on the 

 Earth's distance from the Sun, and the Admiralty had offered to 

 send a ship for this purpose to Tahiti, the South Sea island that 

 England's Captain Samuel Wallis had only recently discovered. 



As with most government-sponsored expeditions, scientific 

 knowledge was 'not the only goal. The British also hoped to find 

 new land to claim, and the possibilities of the Great Southern 

 Continent still loomed large. Despite the fact that Sir Francis Drake 

 and others by this time had found that Tierra del Fuego was only 

 an island, most geographers still believed that the South Pacific 

 must contain a continent as big as Europe and Asia combined. It 

 was thought to extend nearly into the tropics in places; and it 

 would almost certainly be a source of great wealth to the first nation 

 to plant its flag there. In 1768 there was still room for such a belief. 

 No vessel had yet approached the Antarctic Circle (lat. 66°3o'S.), 

 and few had reached even as far as lat. 30° S. So the Society turned 

 to James Cook, who happened to be in England, and whose paper 

 on longitude had proved him a competent scientific observer. In 

 May of that year Cook was transferred from the navigation to the 

 executive branch of the navy and was made a first lieutenant. He then 

 took command of H.M.S. Endeavour. At the age of forty - an ad- 

 vanced age for those days - he was finally to begin his great work. 



On August 2 5 the Endeavour set sail with ninety-four persons on 

 board, including several scientists. The ship was entirely Cook's 

 choice ; Uke his first ship, the Freelove, she was a three-masted vessel 

 of 368 tons, built for the coal trade. Cook felt that she was exactly 

 right for his purpose of charting coast lines. Her large capacity, 

 small draft, and the ease with which she could be hauled ashore for 

 repairs were an ideal combination. 



Before following Cook on his first voyage around the world we 

 should clearly establish his mission. His initial objective was Tahiti, 

 where the scientists were to observe the transit of Venus. Next 



37 



